"If you hit them, they will behave ..." - the neocons' song.

I have long puzzled over the question of why the neocons; Lindsey Graham, the late John McCain (be brave Lindsey!), Jack Keane, Bolton, Pompeo, etc., etc., ad nauseam,  cling so firmly to the idea of striking Iran a hard blow.

Today I heard the reason voiced on the Sunday newsies by several of the Faithful.  "If you punish the Iranians they will behave" was the refrain.  "They know they would lose to the US and so would be afraid to go to war with us."  This delusion is a variation of the Rational Actor Model.  This poly sci inspired model is based on the false premise that everyone, everywhere functions on the basis of the same priorities and values.  This is an untruth.  For example, a willingness to die for one's country is not a universally shared attitude.  Nor is, a belief in an almighty God who dictates one's duty in this world.  A god in whom the Muslims actually believe as expressed in the shahada (testimony) depicted above.

So, pilgrims, the neocons believe that if the Iranians are punished like children who are spanked for picking their noses, they will recognize the error of their ways and the country will accept the will of the US and more importantly of the Zionists who are IMO the source of such a belief.  Zionism seeks a ME pacified with regard to the existence and hegemony of the Jewish State. 

To that end the Zionists have followed a relentless practice of punishing their opponents in order to bring them to heel.  That has never worked for them but they persist in this "strategery" and have clearly convinced a critical number of movers and shakers in the US to follow their lead.  pl

Comments

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

So, I am correct to include that you are Shameless?

[CK]

OK.
Economics has exactly 0 effect on war-decision making in the US government.
Never has had and never will have. ( If they were alive we could attempt to ask FDR, WW, The old Bull Mouse and various other American leaders entirely free of any taint of economic considerations ). Oil and P$ are irrelevant to the venal and corrupt, as long as Israel keeps sending the shekels.
I am not an overpriced and underperforming DC money sink of a restaurant.
I have never suggested that economics was the determining factor in decision making only that it is very important to a lot of venal pols and an even greater amount of dual citizenship individuals.

[CK]

Are you any of those things?
I accept the Colonel's appreciation of Saudi Leadership, character and morality.
I watched them hang Saddam live (snark) on the internets.
I have bought and sold many different commodities over the last 73 years. Some profitably, some not so much.
Ex = has been
spurt = drip under pressure

[English Outsider]

Eric - yes, you are of course quite right. The Holocaust overshadows the post-Mandate period and quite changes how it's all viewed.

Just finished Gilmour's life of Kipling. Interesting that that arch-apostle of imperialism foresaw disaster from the very start of the Mandate. But then, one thing he'd had first hand experience of was inter-faith and inter-sectarian clashes. Others who knew their way round the Islamic world were similarly pessimistic. To no avail. Imperial hubris towards the end of empire was something else and it's not just Palestine that lost out because of it.

In fact the more one looks at the mess they leave behind there's really only one rule for empires. Don't.

[Oscar Peterson]

Agree.

[Oscar Peterson]

"I made a straightforward ststement sbout 'Umar. Why the 'but'?"

To indicate that I acknowledged your point about Umar BUT that I had a larger point to make about Arabs and Arabians over historical time.

[LA Sox Fan]

I assume Iran would act rationally if the US launched a limited bombing/missile strike on Iranian territory. The rational response to such a US strike would be the launching of a substantial percentage of Iran’s missiles against every US military base, every Saudi and other US allied Gulf States’ military bases, oil fields, oil exporting infrastructure, electric power generation, and water de-salinization plants with range of those missiles. Trying to hurt as much as possible an enemy at war with your nation is a completely rational response to an attack.

Iraq after the First Gulf War is a good example of what happened to a country that allowed the US to embargo its oil sales and bomb it at will. It became weaker and weaker as time went on, only to be invaded by the US after years of suffering. Why anyone would think a rational nation like Iran would “do nothing” in the face of a US attack is a mystery. Iran would be better off trying to cripple oil exports from the Gulf, and thus weaken the entire Western World including the US, than turning the other cheek and being gradually defeated. They would behave like Japan prior to WWII, which launched a war knowing there was a good chance it could lose, rather than face the certainty that the US would slowly strangle Japan if it did nothing. Japan was “rational.” Iran’s response to a US attack would be rational too. Our problem isn’t that other countries act in an irrational manner. Our problem is that we are irrational and we have deluded ourselves into believing that the rational thinking of others is irrational.

[ex PFC Chuck]

Re:

"Christian Zionism pre-dated the Holocaust. It was one strand, I'd guess a fairly minor one in truth, that influenced the British decision to set up what later became the State of Israel."

In The Peace to End All Peace David Fromkin argues that Prime Minister David Lloyd-George's strong and vocal Christian Zionism was perhaps the major factor in that decision.

[oldman22]

Eric Newhall says:
" Iran has made threats to wipe it off the map and Iran is developing the capability to do just that."
This is oft repeated Israeli propaganda, a deliberate mis-translation.
Here are a few references you might care to read:
"Ahmadinejad did not use that phrase in Persian. He quoted an old saying of Ayatollah Khomeini calling for ‘this occupation regime over Jerusalem” to “vanish from the page of time.’ Calling for a regime to vanish is not the same as calling for people to be killed. Ahmadinejad has not to my knowledge called for anyone to be killed."
Juan Cole, https://www.juancole.com/2007/06/ahmadinejad-i-am-not-anti-semitic.html

"When we look at Gaza’s before and after pictures (below) it becomes clear that the charge is more appropriate to Israel itself."

"Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to “wipe it off the map.”

Reality: No Iranian leader in the executive has threatened an aggressive act of war on Israel, since this would contradict the doctrine of ‘no first strike’ to which the country has adhered. The Iranian president has explicitly said that Iran is not a threat to any country, including Israel."
https://www.juancole.com/2009/10/top-things-you-think-you-know-about.html

"Experts confirm that Iran's president did not call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'. Reports that he did serve to strengthen western hawks."
" (By the way, for Farsi speakers the original version is available here."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155

"
The Lede - The New York Times News Blog
Israeli Minister Agrees Ahmadinejad Never Said Israel ‘Must Be Wiped Off the Map’
" Teymoor Nabili of Al Jazeera suggested during an interview with Dan Meridor, Israel’s minister of intelligence and atomic energy, that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s rhetorical flourish had been misinterpreted. “This idea that Iran wants to wipe Israel out,” Mr. Nabili said, “now that’s a common trope that is put about by a lot of people in Israel, a lot of people in the United States, but as we know Ahmadinejad didn’t say that he plans to exterminate Israel, nor did he say that Iran’s policy is to exterminate Israel.”
"As the Guardian columnist Jonathan Steele explained in 2006, a more direct translation of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks would be: “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,” echoing a statement once made by the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini."
https://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/israeli-minister-agrees-ahmadinejad-never-said-israel-must-be-wiped-off-the-map/

[English Outsider]

Thanks. I take an amateur's interest in the Mandate period, that muddle of genuine British imperial idealism, hubris and straight Machtpolitik that led inexorably to the Nakba. There was a discussion on SST a while back covering the surprisingly vicious rivalry between the French and the British in the area at that time which goes some way towards explaining the difficulties with the Vichy authorities in North Africa during the war. Makes the heroic Free French stand at Bir Hakeim all the more remarkable. I didn't know of the book you mention and shall certainly get it. Thank you very much.